The green-bordered text below is is the English version of the explanatory text,
from the page facing the map. Another page on this site gives the
full text in German, English, French, and Bulgarian.

1. – Europe at the time of the Carolingians.

This map is reproduced from Spamers "Illustrated History of the World" and shows Europe at the time of the Carolingians, who reigned in Germany from 752-911. On this map the frontiers of the first Bulgarian Empire of that epoch are not drawn with full historical accuracy. A correction, therefore, is necessary.

In the eighth century (752-800) the Bulgarian State comprised the northern Bulgaria of today, the northern Thracia, the southern part of Wallachia and southern Bessarabia; but the latter is not indicated as Bulgarian territory on this map.

This map includes some districts in Bulgaria that in the ninth century (801-900) did not belong to it, Macedonia for instance during the reign of Krum; the north-west frontier followed the course of the Theiss, not that of the Danube; neither Albania nor Epirus were Bulgarian territory under the rule of Pressiam and Czar Boris; eastern Hungary and Transylvania had been already lost under Czar Simeon.

According to the treaty of 904, the Bulgarians of the tenth century (901-911) had access to the Adriatic Sea at the time of the reign of Czar Simeon, in reality however they dominated over a far larger part of the coast, as the map indicates. Inaccurately drawn are furthermore the frontiers of east Macedonia as well as the region of Salonica. It must also be mentioned that the start of the southern frontier has been wrongly put on the shore of the Black Sea; it began at a point far more south of the small town of Midia.

From all this it appears that the author of the map was not well versed in Bulgarian history and he therefore confounds the frontiers of the Bulgarian State of different periods.

In consequence of this error, this map allows a misconception about the extent of the Bulgarian Empire at the mentioned period in relation to the union of the Balkan- and Daci-slavonians under Bulgarian rule.

In spite of this inferiority, this map has been reproduced here upon two considerations:
a) In order that one more map of the first Bulgarian Empire may be published drawn by a European man of science;
b) as proof of the impartially with which this atlas has been put together, and the scientific objectiveness with which Professor Zlatarsky has demonstrated the historical development of the Bulgarian State in his new maps.

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